Till the month before finals all you need to do is about 2 hrs of reading/studying on the weekdays, and a maybe 2-3 hrs total over the weekend. I never "study" other than before finals or a midterm (not all classes have midterms). However, I do dilligently read 99% of my reading assignments (other than for crim law where the casebook notes/class discussions were way more critical than any cases...the way my professor taught anyways). Around a month before finals, I get a bit more serious. I start looking at or working on practice essay questions during the weekends. I usually limit this to a few hours each weekend. Two weeks before finals I kick it up a notch and add multiple choice questions to the mix. Note, the weeks before finals can be hectic because you are preparing while still reading your class materials.

The last week before finals is where the real studying begins. That is when I memorize my rule statements and ensure that I can spill them out without thinking. Every rule, every exception, and in the classes that require it the cases (make sure you find out what your professor's want).

Other than this, there are times when you work a bit more than usual. For instance, right before a graded legal writing memo is due, people tend to get very busy, but I tend to research these memo's way ahead of time. The problem is I start writing them about two days before the due date, so my two days before a legal writing final memo (only 1 graded per semester at my school) is due I basically am living and breathing the memo.

Everything worked out for me last semester and I did very well. I am basically doing the same thing this semester.

0L question here - before finals, do you guys go back and re-read all the cases from the beginning of the semester? How do you remember them? Or do you only read the notes you took on the cases? The amount of material to learn/memorize seems overwhelming....

skippy1 wrote:0L question here - before finals, do you guys go back and re-read all the cases from the beginning of the semester? How do you remember them? Or do you only read the notes you took on the cases? The amount of material to learn/memorize seems overwhelming....

This is why I still brief my cases (even though a lot of my classmates don't). It makes it a lot easier for me to remember general rules if I brief the cases and just put the holding (if it's important enough) in my outline.

skippy1 wrote:0L question here - before finals, do you guys go back and re-read all the cases from the beginning of the semester? How do you remember them? Or do you only read the notes you took on the cases? The amount of material to learn/memorize seems overwhelming....

For the vast majority of classes, knowing all the individual cases is completely unnecessary. Some professors will want you to know the "big ones" (like Raich in Con Law or International Shoe in Civ Pro), but even then, knowing the detailed facts is probably not necessary. You'll already be very familiar with these cases after hearing them thrown around in class all semester long, and you'll probably be able to recall the crucial facts of them on the exam if you should have to distinguish them on the exam. And what you need to know of the cases can probably be figured out in the supplements. I'm not going to re-read a case if I can get everything I need from a one paragraph summary in my E&E or Understanding book.

A few very evil professors may require you to know the facts of non-major, individual cases, which may require you to go back and re-read some, but this seems to be pretty out of the ordinary in my experience.

40 hours a week or less will be more than enough to get you through the first half of the semester. If you can work diligently 6 days a week with a focus on preparing for finals, the last few weeks still shouldn't be too rough. Practice tests take more time than the just reading stuff, but doing them is less mind-numbing than reading and re-reading notes, supplements, and cases.

Probably averaged about 30-35 hours a week first half (including class), ramping up to low-mid 50/60's as I got into the last part of the semester, and ended up ~top 5% at a T13. Doing a little less work this exam period, for better or for worse.

(1) Wake up 10 minutes before class, run.(2) Go to class, gchat.(3) Gchat and waste time while waiting for next class, skim through the reading, hoping you won't get called on.(4) Go to next class.(5) Go home.(6) watch tv and stuff until 10pm.(7) About to study, then friends call you up, go out for beer instead.

---->One month before finals:

***PANIC***

(1) Outline everyday.(2) Feeling good, so you slack off a little bit.(3) 2 days before exam, you freak out again and finish up your outlines.(4) Finish exams.(5) Get drunk.

I'd say TITCR. I think I posted something similar to this a few months ago. I'll see if I can find it. But this basically sums up my exact study schedule, and I did fairly well gradewise last fall. Again, you don't have to make law school harder than it is by killing yourself all semester long. A lot of the people who do this still do poorly on exams.

This 100% Add in about 15 panic attacks here and there- and words with friends/angry birds and this is pretty much it. Totally worth the money.

Stringer6 wrote:So most people here don't buy into the putting in the amount of time recommended by Arrow and others who have written tls guides?

Also, where is the best place to buy supplements?

I did a lot of what Arrow did and it paid off last semester big time. But, I'll admit it was likely a ton of unnecessary and superfluous studying at points. It at least made for a much more relaxed exam period than most, I think.

I tried to get the used supplements early from my bookstore. You can get a free amazon prime account and get free shipping too.

Stringer6 wrote:So most people here don't buy into the putting in the amount of time recommended by Arrow and others who have written tls guides?

Also, where is the best place to buy supplements?

I did a lot of what Arrow did and it paid off last semester big time. But, I'll admit it was likely a ton of unnecessary and superfluous studying at points. It at least made for a much more relaxed exam period than most, I think.

I tried to get the used supplements early from my bookstore. You can get a free amazon prime account and get free shipping too.

Last year, and last semester, I followed a pretty tough schedule -- getting to school around 7:30, staying until 10pm two days per week, outlining as I went along, reading supplements, etc. It paid off big time.

This semester, I slacked a little -- I'm out-to-here pregnant, and my daughter just turned two, so I just didn't have the energy to pull the same kind of schedule as I did...I still stayed up on my reading, but I left most of my outlining until the last few weeks of school. I definitely felt it going into exams -- MUCH less comfortable, much more reliant on my outlines rather than having the stuff easily accessible in my head. I still feel like I did well on each of the tests (we'll see in a few weeks, I suppose), but my stress level was far, far higher this semester than it's been in semesters prior.

Next year, I'm going back to my tough, Arrow/Xeoh-type schedule. It sucked a little more during the week, but I had more relaxing weekends and I was WAY less stressed come finals. I'll take a little more suckage on the front end so that I'm not a crazy person on the back end, but YMMV.

skippy1 wrote:0L question here - before finals, do you guys go back and re-read all the cases from the beginning of the semester? How do you remember them? Or do you only read the notes you took on the cases? The amount of material to learn/memorize seems overwhelming....

For the vast majority of classes, knowing all the individual cases is completely unnecessary. Some professors will want you to know the "big ones" (like Raich in Con Law or International Shoe in Civ Pro), but even then, knowing the detailed facts is probably not necessary. You'll already be very familiar with these cases after hearing them thrown around in class all semester long, and you'll probably be able to recall the crucial facts of them on the exam if you should have to distinguish them on the exam. And what you need to know of the cases can probably be figured out in the supplements. I'm not going to re-read a case if I can get everything I need from a one paragraph summary in my E&E or Understanding book.

A few very evil professors may require you to know the facts of non-major, individual cases, which may require you to go back and re-read some, but this seems to be pretty out of the ordinary in my experience.

Raich? That case was like a side note in my Con Law class. I think a big one would be more like US v Lopez or Wickard or even Gibbons in that area.

Okay, maybe in your con law class. In mine, it was the last case we read and we focused on it a lot since it left a lot of doors open for future directions. I agree re: Wickard and Lopez, but Gibbons? Come on brah... you don't need that pedestrian garbage. That'd be like citing to Pennoyer on a Civ Pro exam. It's a baseline intro, but not that important.

skippy1 wrote:0L question here - before finals, do you guys go back and re-read all the cases from the beginning of the semester? How do you remember them? Or do you only read the notes you took on the cases? The amount of material to learn/memorize seems overwhelming....

This depends. I would never read a full case, but I reread the class notes about it, because then you get the case + your professors perspective on it.

If you're in con law or civ pro (or property for imminent domain) and it's a case like Raich, State farm v. Campbell, Gasperini etc. then it could be an entire exam question in and of itself. Cases like this are fairly easy to spot because your professor might spend a lot of time on them, or they'll be cases that take the law in a new direction.

However, for classes like crim law, torts, or contracts, (or really, the majority of all the cases you read) then rarely will a case be more than just an illustration of a point or a test, and that point/test/factor can be learnt through a supplement, or if you take it down in class notes, then the case that it was attached to is unnecessary.

Again, I would say that it's never a smart method to reread through every single case to prepare for an exam anyways, because you'd be much better served by rereading the class notes you took on the case. All that said, remembering cases is surprisingly easy to do, the fact patterns and the "point" usually stick with you.

Once you read a case and take notes, do you go back and review the concepts/rules from that case from the notes you took or the outline you are making? Or do later concepts build on the previous ones? I'm wondering how people keep from forgetting material from earlier in the semester.

skippy1 wrote:Once you read a case and take notes, do you go back and review the concepts/rules from that case from the notes you took or the outline you are making? Or do later concepts build on the previous ones? I'm wondering how people keep from forgetting material from earlier in the semester.

The average case you get will have a takeaway of something like "corporations are not protected under the privileges and immunities clause" or "the reasonable person standard is based on like age and experience"

and together it will only add up to a 30-50 page outline at most. Nobody should have trouble memorizing a 30-50 page outline over the course of 4 months.